Responsible for most household purchases, it is a beneficial investment for your retail store to target marketing efforts toward moms. Blog marketing has become a popular, inexpensive marketing strategy that reaches moms through a fast and effective approach. According to consumer data gathered by Forrester, moms are 50% more likely to create social media content and participate in online communities than the average online user.

Moms today are blogging by the thousands and they do so through user-generated conversations on their own individual blog. Reaching these moms on a personal level is important and can be done by sharing content about relevant products tailored toward families. Moms want information about household products before they buy them and today they are turning to the internet to find those like-minded peer reviews. Always looking to get the most for her money, posting coupons online is an effective way to get moms to buy your product over another. Not “pitching” your brand is important, as you want to keep your blog in a conversational, participatory tone. After all, moms want to be comfortable with the products that they are purchasing and know that they can consistently trust and rely on a particular brand.

If you are considering blog marketing or other social marketing strategies to reach and engage moms, please do not hesitate to contact a Triangle Direct Media account executive to learn more about our custom solutions.

What are your plans for protecting your online business during the current economic slowdown? According to Internet News, many online retailers are putting customer retention at the top of their priorities in hopes to survive the recession. But the question is how exactly are they going to change their business strategies to retain more customers and at the same time use a cost-effective approach? A new study from Shop.org, an online retailing industry group, found that more and more online retailers are turning to social media and other emerging marketing techniques to cut back on costs.

While many retailers are cutting costs, others have found the economic slowdown as an opportunity to increase market share. According to Internet News, almost half of retailers surveyed have no plans to cut back original budgets, while 24 percent will spend more on their online business than planned originally. Companies that plan to spend more will increase investments in areas of search (80%), e-mail marketing (65%) and social media marketing (60%) to help grow their businesses due to the pullback in consumer spending. Four out of five retailers surveyed said that they thought the web is the best suited channel to survive the recession, with one-third claiming the economic downturn has enabled the capture for greater market share.

To help optimize business strategies for retailers, new tools are making their debut in the industry. In order to withstand the recession, online retailers are learning to make smart spending decisions by doing more with less and taking advantage of new, innovative tools and techniques that have made their debut into the industry. New, innovative tools and techniques are launching to help retailers come out of this recession in a positive manner and effectively tap the power of social media, tribes and networks. The current goal for these online retailers right now is to get their hands on these tools to help accelerate sales, better resonate with prospective customers and thrive in a down market.

Emarketer recently came out with its predictions for 2007. Here are the highlights;

Online ad spending will top $20 billion, an increase of almost 20% from 2006.
Online video advertising will see a dramatic upturn.
Social Networking sites will see $1billion worth of advertising dollars.
Positive word of mouth advertising will become increasingly important for retailers.

The trends are clear. Companies will spend more and embrace all new technologies available in order to grab a larger piece of an ever growing online sales pie. The early adopters will see the largest gains.

In a recent development, it seems that internet marketing companies have started spamming social media sites such as Digg in an effort to gain better position on search engines. Digg is a social bookmarking site that gives people the opportunity to share their favorite blogs, articles and websites with others. A vote for a website however, can have a significant economic impact if this vote influences search position, so it is not surprising that marketers would want to manipulate the process. Social Media Optimization appears to be the new “SEO” and as such will present tremendous opportunity for marketers. It will also improve search engines as the technology continues to evolve and the internet continues to provide a better user experience.